The Bureau of Industry and Security plans to add more attorneys to its chief counsel's office to keep pace with its Russia-related export controls, a Commerce Department official said during the BIS annual update conference last week. The counsel has about 15 lawyers but expects to add more “in the coming months,” said the official, speaking on background as part of a conference policy for career staff. “It really has been unprecedented times over the past six months,” the official said, adding that the counsel’s office wants “to make sure that we can match” the rest of the agency “as the amount and intensity of work continues.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security is using recently received funding to expand its U.S. field offices and send more officers overseas, said Matthew Axelrod, the agency’s top enforcement official. Axelrod said BIS soon will launch a field office in Phoenix and has sent export control officers to the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki and the American Institute of Taiwan in Taipei. BIS also recently sent its first intelligence analyst abroad to work with the Canadian Border Services Agency.
The U.S. needs to build a new multilateral export control forum to “institutionalize” the licensing and enforcement coordination of the last several months, said Don Graves, the Commerce Department’s deputy secretary. Although Bureau of Industry and Security officials said they are unsure whether the cooperation will lead to a new, formal export control regime (see 2206290032), Graves was critical of the existing ones, saying the U.S. needs a more modern approach to respond to Russia and other global crises in the future.
The U.S. and its allies should be sharing more export control information to better align their licensing decisions, said Thea Kendler, the Bureau of Industry and Security's assistant secretary for export administration. Although the U.S. is already sharing some of that information through the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council to keep Russia from acquiring sensitive technologies and other items for its military, Kendler said more can be done.
The U.K. Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee released a report June 30 critical of Britain's role in the global financial system as a "hub for illicit finance," particularly in light of the war in Ukraine. Russian assets are continuously laundered through the U.K. to finance President Vladimir Putin's war, the committee said. London's standing as a magnet for global finance presents a grave national security risk, the committee said. The report assesses "consequences of the complacency of successive Governments towards illicit finance and the adequacy of the current Government's response."
The EU General Court on June 27 dismissed an application from sanctioned Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov for interim measures, according to an unofficial translation. The court ruled his application didn't show urgency or serious irreparable harm because Usmanov only discussed his damages that stemmed from the financial viability of three subsidiaries of USM Holding. Usmanov has a 49% share of the subsidiaries and thus does not control them, the court pointed out. As such, the applicant failed to show a direct causal link between the subsidiaries' finances and his placement, made in February, on the EU's Russian sanctions list.
The U.S. didn’t do enough to penalize the Chinese companies accused by the Commerce Department this week of helping Russia evade export controls (see 2206280056), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said the U.S should also have placed financial sanctions on the companies, adding that State Department Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman told the committee in April that China would face “consequences” if its companies provided support to Russia.
Switzerland announced June 29 it's imposing further sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, implementing the EU's most recent sanctions package, which includes an embargo on crude oil and certain refined petroleum products from Russia. The Swiss Federal Council said the sanctions package also adds more than 100 Russian and Belarusian individuals and entities to the sanctions list and bans services related to the oil and petroleum products trade, including insurance or reinsurance for the transport of oil to any destination. The package also bans a number of financial and professional services such as auditing, public relations or consulting for Russian firms. Unlike the EU's sanctions package, Switzerland didn't ban the awarding of public contracts to Russian individuals or organizations with links to the country.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week amended the Global Terrorism Sanctions Regulations to implement a Sept. 9, 2019, counterterrorism executive order. The amendments, which take effect July 1, implement the provisions of executive order 13886, “Modernizing Sanctions To Combat Terrorism” that amended sections 1(a) and 5 of Executive Order 13224. The change blocks all property and interests in property that are in the U.S. of persons listed in the amended Annex to E.O. 13224, foreign persons determined by the secretary of state to have committed or have attempted to commit acts of terrorism. It also makes certain "technical and conforming changes" to the regulations.
The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls is preparing to publish several new export control rules, including one that will request feedback on U.S. Munitions List categories and another that will consolidate exemptions under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. DDTC is also starting to review a more complex set of Ukraine-related export licenses after moving through some of the more straightforward applications earlier this year.